Tuesday, July 23, 2013

FILM-FRAMES FROM STAR TREK

Deleted scene from the third-season episode "Elaan of Troyius".

A friend sent to me this morning a link to a article online (from Tor.com) about a Star Trek fan who has been restoring 35mm film clips that were sold, starting back in the late 1960s, to the Trek public.

These clips were trims from the editing rooms that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry scooped-up and sold through a company he set up called "Star Trek Enterprises" (later called "Lincoln Enterprises"). Very often the original camera slates were included as part of the clips sold. The positive-print 35mm frames would have been individually cut and mounted into slide holders.

Roddenberry's actions were questionable from a "studio policy" point-of-view but what this means today is that Star Trek survives in film-frame-clip form in addition to the final cut episodes.